Democrats don't *really* have a Joe Biden alternative

Quick: Name someone!

(Joe Biden)\

The story of this week in politics is the rising agita among Democrats toward the prospect of Joe Biden as their party’s presidential nominee in 2024.

Those worries have been fueled by two polls — one by the Wall Street Journal, one by CNN — that did, admittedly, paint a tough picture for Biden.

And those concerns have spawned talk that Democrats have to find a way to replace Biden on the ballot or run the risk of losing it all next year.

Except, well, it’s not that simple. (Don’t act surprised!)

Start here: There is, at the moment, a significant desire within the Democratic party to find someone other than Biden to run in 2024.

This, from the CNN poll, is instructive on that point:

Two thirds want another candidate! Democrats have to find someone else! ASAP.

Except, well, that’s the hard part. Because, right after CNN asked the question on whether Biden should be the Democratic nominee, they asked another one — who, specifically, Democrats wanted to replace Biden.

More than 8 in 10 Democrats couldn’t name anyone! Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg were the preferred alternatives — and they each got 3% support! A pittance!

The way you should read the data from this question goes something like this: Democrats have no clue about what a race without Biden in it would look like nor is there any candidate anywhere near viability as a replacement for him.

What this reminds me the most of is when I ask my kids what they want to eat for dinner. I suggest a bunch of options — and they promptly shoot them all down. Then I ask them to pick a place. They stare at me dumbfounded, unable to come up with a single name.

They know what they don’t want but not what they do. It’s maddening.

This is the bias of the familiar. We are, by human nature, more resistant to go along with what we know than what we can imagine. Sure this thing we have is pretty good but what if there is something even better out there?!! The grass is always greener and all that.

This bias is, I think, largely responsible for where Biden finds himself among Democrats these days.

Biden is the known commodity. He’s decidedly unsexy (politically speaking). He’s old. He’s been in and around American politics forever. He isn’t the liberal crusader that some of the base wants.

And so, the mind wanders. What if there is a candidate out there who checks all of the boxes Biden doesn’t? Someone who can truly inspire and uplift the party and the nation — and all that?

Of course, when quizzed about who that candidate, specifically, could be, Democrats are stunned into silence. Because that perfect candidate simply does not exist. Sanders, Buttigieg, Kamala Harris — pick your person but they all have weaknesses and problems. (This, by the way, is the same phenomenon that animates talk of a third party presidential candidate I wrote about earlier this week.)

Which is why I don’t think you should put too much stock into the large number of Democrats who say they want someone other than Biden to be the nominee in 2024.

Sure, he and his team would rather have those numbers reversed, with 67% of Democrats saying they want him as their presidential nominee.

But, I don’t think those numbers suggest that when Biden is the party’s nominee — as, barring some sort of catastrophic health episode, he will be — Democrats won’t rally behind him.

I think we are in the flirtation period of the presidential race — at least for Democrats. They like to imagine what life would be like with someone other than Biden.

But, you don’t flirt forever. Eventually you settle down. And I think most Democrats will settle down with Joe Biden by the time he is officially confirmed as the party’s nominee next summer.